


love's apophatic blinking

by Anonymous



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon Divergence - Post X-Men: First Class (2011), F/F, Flirting, Implied/Referenced Sex Work, Light Dom/sub, Pre-Relationship, Propositions, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Sugar Mama Emma Frost, Teasing, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 05:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “What can I get you?” The bartender stole her attention, so Emma turned her eyes to him slowly.“Oh, I am definitely not here for a drink,” Emma replied curtly, sparing a smile for the man before she raised her eyes to the beauty before her. “I’m here for her.”
Relationships: Emma Frost/Angel Salvadore
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3
Collections: X-Men Rare Pairs 2021





	love's apophatic blinking

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [InsertSthMeaningful](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful) in the [xmenrarepairs21](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs21) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> In which the CIA also fished a very wet and very cooperative Emma Frost from the ocean off the coast of Miami and she accompanies Charles and Erik on their mutant-finding road trip. Being obliged to deal with the two men's most odious flirting and mutual pining, she finds a welcome distraction in the sweet, smart stripper Angel.

Emma took a deep breath as she pushed open the front door to the... establishment Charles had found their latest target in, and she did her best not to grimace at the stench. He trailed after her, Erik at his back and most likely staring at his ass, and Emma took a moment to slip off her leather gloves and handed them behind her for one of the boys to dutifully take before she took off her sunglasses. 

It was no better once her eyes had adjusted to the low, dingy light. The air stank of sweat and desperation in a horrible mix that had Emma curling up her lip in distaste.

_ This place is disgusting, Charles, _ Emma thought with a sneer. She looked around and instantly wished she hadn’t. 

_ And Hellfire was better, dear? _ Charles asked, humour along his thoughts.  _ It might not be up to our usual standards, but it isn’t that bad! _ Charles protested, but then his mind snagged on Erik and Emma gave up any hope of communicating with him. 

Instead of telepathically listening to the two of them, she took a few steps further into the strip club. The bartender at the door had let them in with wide eyes, his thoughts stuck on just how expensive Emma’s diamond necklace looked. He was right, of course; it had cost her quite the pretty penny, but she thought it fit her neck wonderfully and was thus worth every cent. 

Looking around now, Emma was absolutely certain that her necklace was the most expensive thing that had ever entered this building, save for herself, of course. 

The strip club was... well, it actually could have been worse. Honestly, it could have been  _ much _ worse. Emma wasn’t entirely sure  _ how _ it could be worse, as she hadn’t ever been in a building as seedy as this, but her heels weren’t sticking to the floor. That was a horror story she’d heard from one of her employees, and she couldn't even  _ imagine _ how disgusting that would be. 

Thankfully this place was a step above that, because Emma honestly wasn’t sure if she would be able to stay in a building where her  _ shoes stuck to the floor. _ She looked down at her dainty, white sandal pumps, and felt for them. 

And while her feet weren’t sticking to the floor, Emma was definitely used to fancier jaunts. 

A little ways into the club was a long, circular bar with a well-dressed man manning it. Emma took another look around and realized the place wasn’t  _ quite _ as seedy as the neighbourhood it was housed within led her to believe, but it  _ certainly _ wasn’t a place that she would ever freely visit. Emma had grown up with money and had made even more for herself and this... was not a place of money. 

There  _ was, _ however, a beautiful woman dancing on the glowing bar table, dressed in a black, fringey lingerie set with black boots that laced up her calves, and she was  _ gorgeous. _

Emma tore her eyes away after a long moment to focus on the mix of men that lined the bar. Some were dressed in cheap, loosely fitting suits and some in much more casual clothing, but all of them were thinking one thing and nothing more. Emma took a deep breath and did her best to think pleasant thoughts.

_ This place isn’t that bad, _ Emma allowed, feeling oddly charitable as she watched the woman who’d snagged her attention dance. 

_ I told you. _

There was nothing else from Charles for a moment, and then he tapped her shoulder. Emma flipped her hair as she turned to look at him, letting the curls cascade down her back. “Yes?”

“We’ll book a room,” he told her, a giddy excitement in his eyes that Emma had missed during her years in business. Emma hadn’t seen Charles since she was eleven, but even as a child, he’d had an excitability about him that had been rare in their social circle. 

“You better not use it,” Emma teased, passing Charles her sunglasses to keep a hold of and delighting in the way his fair cheeks went pink before Erik pulled him away. 

Emma watched them disappear around a corner with a roll of her eyes. The two of them were using their road trip to fuck without the spying eyes of the CIA, but Emma wasn’t about to begrudge them of their personal time, not when she knew how deeply they cared for each other despite how they tried not to show it. 

She looked back to the bar and ignored the looks the men were giving her. Emma knew how she looked in her dress, which was well-fitted, short, and made from a delicious white lace over a gorgeous white satin material that clung to her hips and breasts and adorned the length of her arms. It was an outfit chosen to draw looks, with the long length of her legs on full display and the diamond necklace resting against her throat in the swooping, rounded neckline of her dress. 

She allowed the looks now, drawing attention as she spent a moment looking around the room before narrowing her eyes. Then, Emma cast her mind out to look for the marker Charles had shown her back in Cerebro. 

Charles had offered to simply show her the girl they were looking for, but Emma wanted to use this as a bit of practice. It was so rare she got to push her telepathy, and identifying these mutants would be an excellent exercise. She didn’t raise a hand to her temple like Charles’ was so foolishly fond of doing, though her eyes did narrow even further in concentration as she pushed her telepathy outside herself in a way that came so naturally to Charles and so much less naturally to her, and—

Ah, what a lovely surprise. 

Emma felt a soft smile curl around her lips as she looked up at the gorgeous young woman dancing atop the bar. Deep skin wrapped in black frills, big, painted eyes and a sinful pair of lips. The dancer was absolutely beautiful, and Emma slipped into her thoughts with a cool, gentle touch that the girl—Angel, a clever stage name with the mutation Emma found she was hiding—didn’t seem to notice as she kept moving her hips in a way that warmed Emma’s blood. 

Well, apparently there was a chance for this to be a good night yet.

The click of her heels could just be heard over the swinging music playing throughout the club. Emma didn’t spare a glance towards the other dancers or the men so hungrily watching them, not when she had her own hunger, and her own dancer, to focus on. 

That didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the eyes on her, or the thoughts that went along with them. While she didn’t mind the attention, Emma had better things to focus on this evening, and the Angel she was seeking seemed to spot her as she stepped up to the bar in a spot made for her by a simple suggestion pressed into a simpler mind. 

The dancer’s eyes went wide. Emma felt a smile curl around her lips as she felt a pulse of appreciation, and when she moved her mind forward to look, a thrum of arousal in the girl’s thoughts. 

Excellent.

There was a chance that this night would end even better than she could have ever hoped. 

“What can I get you?” The bartender stole her attention, so Emma turned her eyes to him slowly. There was a friendly smile on his face, but Emma could tell he didn’t think she belonged. 

He certainly wasn’t wrong. 

“Oh, I am definitely not here for a drink,” Emma replied curtly, sparing a smile for the man before she raised her eyes to the beauty before her. “I’m here for her.”

Angel dropped into a crouch in front of her, her knees pressed together and her arms draped over them prettily. “That’s a big claim coming from someone I’ve never seen before.”

“What can I say? I’m a woman who knows what she wants,” Emma told her easily. 

“And that’s me?” 

Emma smiled as she tracked her eyes down the woman’s form. “What’s an Angel like you doing in a place like this?”

Angel raised an eyebrow, appropriately suspicious at the use of her name. Good, she wasn’t an idiot. “I’m making a paycheque, baby. What’s a White Queen like  _ you _ doing in a place like this? Doesn’t seem your style.”

“Just looking,” Emma told her easily. “Besides, I wouldn’t be a very good Catholic if I didn’t pay worship an Angel when I saw one, would I?”

“You’re a Catholic?” Angel asked, with a  _ very _ pointed look down at Emma’s bust that had a laugh, light and playful and  _ genuine, _ slipping from her throat. 

“Absolutely not.”

Angel laughed. Her head fell back in a way that exposed the long, sweet line of her throat, and Emma imagined placing her mark there. Good. Emma needed to make her comfortable if she was going to have any hope of recruiting her, after all. 

Her laugh tapered off slowly, and Emma watched the way it brightened her eyes and widened the stretch of her lips. If Emma thought she had been beautiful before, she was absolutely  _ breathtaking _ now. 

Emma had to have her. 

“You’re just here to look?”

“For now,” Emma allowed, tipping her head back to look up at the other woman and meet her gaze squarely. 

Angel gave her another sweet smile, and asked, “C’mon, what can we get you?” 

Instead of answering right away, she hummed consideringly as she took a look around the bar. There was a man watching her with far too much interest. His mind was just as easy to slip into as Emma would have expected, but she had to bite down on a sneer as she slipped into his thoughts. God, men were disgusting. 

Emma snapped her fingers, and a moment later the man was bringing over a barstool and placing it beside her. “Thanks, sugar,” she said sweetly, patting the man’s face before he walked away. 

When she turned back, Angel was watching her with narrowed eyes. The more Emma saw of her, the more interested she was. 

“That’s a neat trick, baby.” Angel’s voice dropped into something low and sultry, and Emma let a filthy grin stretch across her face as she sat on the stool. 

“One of many,” Emma said just as low, raising a hand to move a piece of her hair over his shoulder and letting the tips of her fingers crust over in diamond. 

“Oh yeah? What else can you do?” Angel asked, a challenge in her tone and a glint in her eyes that made Emma’s belly warm. 

Emma raised an eyebrow and asked, “Do you want to find out?”

Angel threw her head back with another laugh. Emma could imagine just how pretty her dark skin would look adorned in her marks. She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen somebody so gorgeous, but Emma found it impossible to take her eyes off Angel as her laugh quieted into a pretty, jingling giggle. 

“Are you going to show me?” Angel asked, sugar-sweet as the words slipped out of her glossy lips. 

“Why don’t you take a seat, sugar?” Emma offered, smiling when Angel raised an eyebrow at her at the change in topic. “You did ask what you could get for me, no?”

“Where?” Angel asked, and Emma gave Angel a smile she knew was sultry. 

“I have a lap, don’t I?”

A moment stretched on between them that seemed to last a lifetime as Emma held herself back from Angel’s mind. She didn’t know what the girl was going to do and she didn’t  _ want _ to know, allowing herself to be taken by surprise as the other woman’s full lips stretched into a beautiful smile. 

Angel hopped down from the bar gracefully. Her feet hardly made a sound, and the way her arms pushed her up in a long line spoke of practice. Angel’s skin was  _ warm _ as she placed a hand on Emma’s shoulder, her heat seeping through Emma’s dress. She felt a smile curl around her lips as Angel used the hold on her shoulder to balance herself as she moved to sit across Emma’s lap, her bum snugly pressed between Emma’s thighs. 

“Good girl,” Emma murmured quietly, and didn’t mention the flush she saw rise to Angel's cheeks. 

Emma only kept her hands to herself for a moment before she reached forward to lay a hand on Angel’s bare, warm thigh. The girl raised an eyebrow, and said, “I hope you can pay for all of this.”

“Oh, sugar, money is the last thing I have to worry about in a place like... this.”

“A place like this?” Angel asked, a touch defensive in a way that brought a shimmering fire to the forefront of her mind. 

Emma raised an eyebrow. She hardly thought she would need to explain herself, and after a moment, Angel relented. Emma squeezed her thigh and slid her hand higher, letting the conversation move away as she asked, “Comfortable?”

Angel pursed her lips, but at first remained silent as she looked at Emma. Emma didn’t mind, happy to let a beautiful woman look at her for as long as she pleased, especially as she was looking at Emma with interest. Sure, she hadn’t originally planned to sleep with the mutant they were searching for, but Emma had always been rather adaptable. 

“I’ve made worse seats for myself,” Angel finally said, her voice teasing as she looked down at Emma with a sparkle in her eye. 

“Have you had better ones?” 

Angel laughed again, a twinkling sound that Emma was far too enamoured with for the handful of times she’d heard it. She had never been so taken with someone, but Angel seemed to have burrowed under her skin in a way Emma couldn’t name. 

But she was on a mission. 

Yes, that was definitely a ridiculous thing that Charles would say. 

“That thing with your...” Angel brought her fingers up and wiggled them in a way that made Emma’s core fill with heat. “Can you do that everywhere?”

“How am I going to keep you interested if I go telling you all my secrets?” Emma asked coyly, letting her eyes harden into diamond in a bout of concentration that brought a stinging headache to the front of her head, but one that was worth it with the way Angel gasped and leaned in even closer. 

“That’s beautiful,” Angel whispered, her breath warm against Emma’s nose. 

She smiled as best as she could and pushed the pain back. She was on a mission; she needed to get Angel to agree to come with them back to the CIA, yes, but more important Emma needed to get the woman into bed and underneath her. 

“I have a proposition for you, sugar,” Emma said seriously. 

She pushed her mind out in a way Charles had shown her, keeping her mind heavy with the intention to ignore anything that might have been overheard by anyone close enough. Her eyes fell closed as she erected a telepathic shield, of sorts, that would ensure no one paid them close enough attention to hear anything they shouldn’t. 

Interest was bright in Angel’s mind. Emma smiled as she felt it, rubbing her thumb back and forth across the inside of Angel’s thigh in a way that drew a shiver down Angel’s spine. 

“Oh, finally!” the woman exclaimed, lifting an arm to drape it across Emma’s shoulders. 

“Not that type of proposition. Not yet, at least.” Emma took a breath, but before she could start her spiel, Angel spoke. 

“Not yet? Now I’m interested.”

“I’m glad,” Emma teased, before she explained what exactly she was doing in this club, how they had found her, and what they needed Angel for, all in low tones that had Angel leaning close enough that Emma could smell the sweet scent of her. 

“That... is absolutely not what I was expecting,” Angel whispered once Emma had finished speaking, though she didn’t pull away or make a move to get up. 

“Well, that isn’t everything I have for you, sugar.”

Angel took a deep breath as she nodded to herself. Emma could feel the way her thoughts were billowing around, so she gave the woman time. Emma knew her own reaction to Charles’ invitation hadn’t been the most put together of responses (she still stood by throwing him off the boat. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already jumped off once!), so she was considerably impressed with how quickly Angel was filing this information away and coming to a decision Emma quite enjoyed. 

“There’s more than bein’ a top-secret, super-powered super-spy for the CIA?”

“Once we return to the CIA base, I would like to take you to my room, undress you, use silk to tie your hands to my headboard and then make you come several times,” Emma said plainly, not looking away from Angel’s eyes as her pupils expanded and darkened her iris. 

When Angel tossed her head back to laugh, Emma felt whatever tension that had built up along her shoulder slip away. It had been a long time since she’d last pursued someone she was genuinely interested in and she could only imagine what a night between them would be like. Even in such a short time, Angel had made her feel wrong-footed, something Emma generally avoided to the best of her ability but found herself embracing this evening because of the woman who caused it.

“Are you sure you can afford that?” Angel asked her, sweet and teasing as her fingers traced over the lace on Emma’s shoulder. 

Ah, yes. Emma hummed under her breath as she played at thinking about Angel’s question. It had been some time since she had last paid someone to be in her bed, but it had been longer still since she’d gone to bed with someone she wasn’t using for power or for money. This would be for  _ her, _ and Emma had always been one to treat herself quite handsomely to the things she wanted. 

Emma swayed forward to brush her lips to Angel’s jaw, humming under her breath as she brushed her hand higher to slip the tips of her fingers under Angel’s shorts. “I am confident I can. I do have to ask, sugar... how much to own you?”

Angel threw her head back with another beautiful laugh, one that was loud enough it drew a few more eyes their way, but Emma was too enchanted to pay much attention to anyone but the woman in her lap.

“How about you go over to that big man and rent out one of our rooms? I’ll stand here and look pretty, and you can put your money where your mouth is and tell me more about why you think I should be willing to work for the CIA,  _ and _ more about how you plan on making me come tonight.” 

“Oh, I know you were going to be good for me, sugar,” Emma said darkly, feeling Angel’s shiver under her fingers. She pressed forward and, with thoughts layered with arousal, promised,  _ And trust me, I’ll be putting my mouth  _ many _ places tonight. _


End file.
